Computers, Brains & Minds
&
The Darwin Sequence
Illustrative Examples
Supplementary Sequences
By
Bernard Friedlander & Cameron Holmes
Summer, 2013
Addenda To
From Here To There:
From Lawful Neuroscience
To The Unruly Realities of Every Day Human Adaptation
OR
Are Mother-Infant Smiles
Beacon Lights of Evolution & Civilization?
Bernard Z. Friedlander, Ph.D.
Version 13.10.15PFFF
© Bernard Z. Friedlander 2013
Research Professor of Human Development, Emeritus
Department of Psychology, University of Hartford
Regularly Contributing Member
CCSS—University of Wisconsin-Madison
Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar – Department of Physics
University of Wisconsin-Madison
October 15, 2012
Introduction-1
When thinking about the illustrative material that follows, it is important
to remember the very highly judgmental statement attributed to George Box,
an eminent mathematically based scientific statistician:
All models are false, but some are more useful than others.
This is very significant in our case. Computer modeling of the
functions of mind and brain are metaphors, as highly illustrative but
ultimately as inexact, as the Poet, Wordsworth’s, famous line,
….I wandered, lonely as a cloud….
Wordsworth was not saying he was a cloud. He was saying he
felt like, or as, a cloud: drifting, far away, alone, subject to forces
beyond his control. This is highly connotative and suggestive of
similarities easily understood. It is a vivid comparison that aids
communication and shared understanding of a feeling tone.
It would be deeply wrong to infer that Wordsworth was denoting
a fact that at some point in time he actually had been a cloud.
Introduction – 2
In the sequences that follow, it would be equally wrong to make
the take away an inference that computer components function in the
same way human brains do their work, or that brains function in the
same way that computers operate.
The relationship between the two is analogous, not homologous.
They each may do similar things, but they go about their work by
entirely different means.
There is much value to be gained from thinking of the usefulness
of computer models for some of the things brains and minds do in the
world. But transistors, circuit boards, imaging & memory systems,
display screens, audio cards, scans, and robots are only substitutes–
metaphors for and analogs of minds and brains.
They each may do similar things, but they go about their work by
entirely different means.
When we fail to recognize differences between analogies and
homologies, between connotations and denotations, we may be
headed for big trouble.
First Addendum
Computers, Brains & Minds
Slides 1 – 17
Second Addendum
The Darwin Sequence
Slides 18 – 27
These Addenda Are At Their BEST
When your computer displays them in
SLIDE SHOW MODE
Use the position arrows on your keyboard to move the slides forward and backward.
In the Darwin Sequence use the arrows, and allow time for the disks to slide in and out of Darwin’s Head !
Cameron had a good time figuring out how to make that happen; Bernard likes to watch the action.
Those movements illustrate learning and innovation very well.
Computers Brains and Minds
COMPUTER DISKS—Modern Computers contain one or more hard-disk drives.
Disks do one thing well -- they store changing digital information in a
relatively permanent form. Disks are the crucial element that give computers
the ability to sort, combine, select and remember things.
Computers Brains and Minds
Servers combine dozens, hundreds, or thousands of hard drives in
very highly complex networks of interactivity.
Computers Brains and Minds
Some Computer Server Systems Are Big, Some Very Big.
But None (Yet!) Can Match The Human Mind.
Computers Brains and Minds
Computer information processing systems
Count their information units
In terms of millions,
Tens of millions
&
Hundreds of millions.
These kinds of information systems…
Albert Einstein--Thinking
...count their
information units
In terms of
Tens &
Hundreds of
Billions.
American Children--Playing
The images that follow are selected from PORTRAITS OF THE MIND by Carl Schoonover (Abrams, 2010.)
These images illustrate just a few of the many different types of
tissues and structures of the brain.
Spiny NeuronCredit: Thomas Deerinck and Mark Ellisman, 2009.Most neurons have three parts:
an axon, a cell body called a soma and dendrites. This scanning electron microscope (SEM) image
shows a soma with dendrites (and their spines) radiating from it. To create SEM images, a beam
of electrons is scanned across the surface of a sample, and a detector keeps track of electrons
bouncing off its surface to reveal the specimen's outer shape.
Artsy Brain Cells, 2004.
Here, two types of cells in the cerebellum are shown: glia and Purkinje neurons.
Credit: Thomas Deerinck and Mark Ellisaman
BRAINBOW
By coaxing different sets of neurons or even different individuals of a species…to
express different proteins, scientists could pick out the cells by the color they glowed
Credit: Ryan Draft, Jeff Lichtman, and Joshua Sanes, 2007
Baroque Blood Vessels
Credit: Alfonso Rodríguez-Baeza and
Marisa Ortega-Sánchez, 2009.
A scanning electron
microscope (SEM) image
zooms in on the baroque
branching structures that
send blood to the human
brain's cortex. The vessels are
organized such that the large
blood vessels surround the
surface of the brain (top of
image), sending thin, dense
projections down into the
depths of the cortex (bottom
of image).
Layers of the Cerebral Cortex
These represent the cells that do all the work of the brain and mind--EVERYTHING
The brain comprises
more than 100
billion neurons,
which are mutually
connected by
means of dendritic
projections and
axons extending
from their cell
bodies to form an
extremely complex
network of neural
circuits.
Riken Research 29 May 2009 (Vol. 4 Issue 5)
www.tutorvista.com
The Human Cerebral Cortex
A Very Simplisitic Representation
Those brilliant images prepare us to think in analytical terms
when we deal with specific mental processes flowing through the
brain and mind:
Are there really millions, perhaps billions, of nerve cells
sending flickers of electrical messages back and forth across the
brain when people engage in the simplest functions of the body
and mind ?
The slides that follow illustrate metaphorical, analogical
examples of how those electrical messages function in building
babies’ awareness of themselves and of the world around them.
These are among the most basic aspects of learning and
adaptation in the entire repertoire of human behaviors.
Computers, Brains & Minds
The Most Prodigious Information Gathering System In
All The World of Nature !
This baby’s
bright eyes are
a sure sign that
her or his head
is filling up with
data very fast.
Computers, Brains & Minds
The Most Prodigious Information Gathering System In
All The World of Nature !
Here are just
some of the
data disks
that are
starting to fill
this baby’s
mind.
Friedlander Triangle of Human Consciousness & Behavior:
These Disks Represent Intricately Related Complex Experiential Information Programs,
Each Densely Packed With Essential Data & Tasks
Functional Dynamics
Developmental Dynamics
Building Blocks
Passage of Time
A. Neurological Dynamics
B. Psychological Dynamics
C. Societal Dynamics
D. Cultural Dynamics
A
A
B
B
C
C
D
B
B. Conventional
Signs &Symbols
A. Evolutionary Variability
B. Historical Variability
C. Generational Variabiiity
D. Individual Variability
A
D
E
D
C
Representational Dynamics
Affective-Cognitive Processing
A. Sensory Perceptual “Qualia”
C. Interpersonal
D. All Forms
Communication
Of Media
E. All Popular &
Fine Arts
© 2013 Bernard Z. Friedlander
Computers Brains & Minds
The Server
Cabinet of
The Mind
Triangle of
Consciousness
& Behavior
A
A
B
B
C
C
A
D
B
C
D
D
E
Computers, Brains & Minds
Computers, Brains & Minds
Computers, Brains & Minds
And Eventually
The information in
Their Disks Will Become
Organized Effectively and
These Two Beautiful Babies
Will Become
Successful
Grown-Ups!
Computers, Brains & Minds
The Server
Cabinet of
The Mind
Any ONE !
Neuro-Dynamics
Devel-Dynamics
Representations of Self & World
EVERYONE !
You
Me
Marian Anderson
J.S. Bach
Ludwig v. Beethoven
Winston Churchill
Cleopatra
Madame Curie
Frederick Douglass
Emily Dickinson
Albert Einstein
Betty Friedan
Martin Luther King
Angelina Jolie
John F. Kennedy
Marilyn Monroe
Wolfgang Mozart
Lee Harvey Oswald
Eleanor Roosevelt
Wm Shakespeare
Meryl Streep
Everyone !
To Access The Following
Extremely Interesting
YOU TUBE Presentation
Follow Either of These Procedures:
1) If your location and computer can access Wi-Fi, on the next slide,
A. Make sure your computer is in “Slide Show” Mode, then
B. Put the computer cursor inside the You Tube gray Rectangle
And click on the YouTube prompt, and then click on the
Full Screen rectangle in the lower right hand corner of the
Part-screen black YouTube display box.
2) If your location and computer do not support Wi-Fi, use some other
means to locate and display this YouTube presentation.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LWz4qa2XQA&feature=yout
Believe me: seeing this University of Minnesota Engineering Triumph
Is worth the trouble of seeking it out !
It is highly appropriate to what this University of Wisconsin Presentation
On Computers, Brains and Minds is all about !
The Darwin Sequence
Slides 28– 36
Darwin’s Early Life:
His Childhood Experiences Represented as Memories
Stored As Data On Computer Disks
“…from an early age Charles will
have become familiar with the
plants and animals in the garden”.
Early Darwin Beetle
Collection
Young Darwin
The Mound, Sussex, England
∨
∨
∨
Benign Childhood
Supportive Family
Early Start
Darwin’s Early Life
Additional Critical Data, and Two More Disks:
Young Charles’ Grandpa, and A Very Important Book
Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802
An Early Theorist on Variations in Species &
Selective Breeding in Plants, Agriculture &
Domestic Animals
∨
Family Tradition of Intellectual Ferment
Sir Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, 1830
New Images of the Age and Complexity of Planet Earth
& Hesitant Challenges to “Sacred” Biblical Narrative
∨
Turbulent Times
Darwin’s Big Chance:
The Voyage of The Beagle
The Route—1831-1836
A watercolour by HMS Beagle's
draughtsman, Conrad Martens.
Painted during the survey of Tierra
del Fuego, it depicts the Beagle being
hailed by native Fuegians.
South
American
Geology
South
American
Fauna
South
American
Flora
Galapagos
Finches
Home from Beagle voyage
Darwin’s Home at Down House, Kent, England
Darwin at Home
Processing Beagle Voyage
1840s – 1850s
Darwin
1850s
Natural
Variation
Competition
Environmental
Adaptation
Natural
Selection
! The Origin of Species !
! Evolution !
The End
For additional information on Bernard Friedlander’s various
projects address e-mail inquiries to bzf202@gmail.com.